Strategies and Approaches for Exploiting the Value of Open Data

Abstract

Data is increasingly permeating into all dimensions of our society and has become an indispensable commodity that serves as a basis for many products and services. Traditional sectors, such as health, transport, retail, are all benefiting from digital developments. In recent years, governments have also started to participate in the open data venture, usually with the motivation of increasing transparency. In fact, governments are one of the largest producers and collectors of data in many different domains. As the increasing amount of open data and open government data initiatives show, it is becoming more and more vital to identify the means and methods how to exploit the value of this data that ultimately affects various dimensions.<br /> In this thesis we therefore focus on researching how open data can be exploited to its highest value potential, and how we can enable stakeholders to create value upon data accordingly. Albeit the radical advances in technology enabling data and knowledge sharing, and the lowering of barriers to information access, raw data was given only recently the attention and relevance it merits. Moreover, even though the publishing of data is increasing at an enormously fast rate, there are many challenges that hinder its exploitation and consumption. Technical issues hinder the re-use of data, whilst policy, economic, organisational and cultural issues hinder entities from participating or collaborating in open data initiatives.<br /> Our focus is thus to contribute to the topic by researching current approaches towards the use of open data. We explore methods for creating value upon open (government) data, and identify the strengths and weaknesses that subsequently influence the success of an open data initiative. This research then acts as a baseline for the value creation guidelines, methodologies, and approaches that we propose. Our contribution is based on the premise that if stakeholders are provided with adequate means and models to follow, then they will be encouraged to create value and exploit data products. Our subsequent contribution in this thesis therefore enables stakeholders to easily access and consume open data, as the first step towards creating value. Thereafter we proceed to identify and model the various value creation processes through the definition of a Data Value Network, and also provide a concrete implementation that allows stakeholders to create value. Ultimately, by creating value on data products, stakeholders participate in the global data economy and impact not only the economic dimension, but also other dimensions including technical, societal and political.